Approach With Prayer

 

• The famous Carmelite mystic, St. John of the Cross, once wrote that, “the more a soul hopes the more it attains.” His point, of course, is that the more we approach our Lord with complete trust and abandonment, the more our Lord will grant us His blessings.
• Indeed, it is the collective wisdom of the saints that we should approach our Lord in prayer with great trust in His goodness and mercy, not fearing to ask Him for even the greatest or most impossible of favors.
• How we approach our Lord is the primary theme of our readings today. In our first reading from the 1st Book of Kings we hear the story of Elijah going up to Mt. Horeb to pray, which is believed to be just another name for Mt. Sinai.
• In this story we are given a brief primer in how to pray. Note well that in going to approach God in prayer on Mt. Horeb, Elijah takes shelter in a cave. We can see in this action a metaphor for going to a quiet place in order to be properly disposed to pray.
• Our Gospel today records that our Lord did the same thing. After feeding the multitudes of people, we are told that Jesus went up on the mountain by Himself to pray.
• So both Jesus and Elijah show us that in approaching our Lord in prayer, we should try to find some solitude. We must come to our Lord in silence so that we can hear His voice.
• As the first reading makes abundantly clear, God is more often found in stillness rather than in great phenomena. For Elijah our Lord was not in the heavy wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but in the tiny whispering sound.
• And so we must learn to cultivate silence in our life as best we can so that we are capable of hearing our Lord speak, for prayer should really be more a process of listening rather than speaking to God.
• Our Gospel today also shows us that we must approach God in prayer with great confidence and faith, most especially in the difficult and turbulent moments of life. We see this in the story of St. Peter walking on water.
• You can imagine the scene: the disciples are on the Sea of Galilee fighting the waves and wind when our Lord goes out to them, walking on the water.
• St. Peter wants proof that the man they see on the water is indeed Jesus and not a ghost, and so in a wonderful act of faith, he asks our Lord to command him to walk on the water, too.
• The problem is that Peter’s faith wanes when he encounters the strength of the wind. Peter gets distracted and takes his eyes off Jesus, and he begins to sink. And our Lord chastises him for it: “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
• Thus this Gospel shows us that our Lord truly wants us to approach Him with a confident faith. He wants us to believe and trust that He can accomplish all things – even that which seems impossible to our finite human minds.
• This Gospel also reminds us that our Lord is quick to come to us in our times of need and distress, even when we don’t recognize Him. He counsels us to take courage and trust in Him, and He reaches out to save us when we are overtaken by our fears.
• But perhaps the most important metaphor in our readings today is the mountain we find in both the first reading and the Gospel.

• Climbing a mountain has long been a metaphor for approaching God in prayer, a metaphor given its best expression by St. John of the Cross, who wrote a treatise on prayer called: The Ascent of Mt. Carmel.
• In The Ascent of Mt. Carmel, St. John of the Cross treats reaching the summit of the mountain as the pinnacle of prayerful union with God, and that to which every soul should aspire.
• But ascending to the heights of prayer is not an easy task, just as climbing a mountain is by no means an easy task.
• Just as mountain climbers must have the right knowledge, the right tools, and no small amount of courage to ascend their peak, the same is true of the Christian who wishes to approach our Lord in prayer and reach the peak of mystical union with Him.
• If we wish to be united with our Lord in prayer, we must have knowledge of Him – which we glean by studying our Faith, but most importantly by studying His Word in Sacred Scripture. As St. Jerome said, “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”
• As for the proper tools for ascending the mountain of prayer, we must be equipped with the virtues, especially humility, prudence, and charity. For humility and prudence enable the other virtues to grow within us, while charity forms all of the virtues.
• And, of course, we must also have courage. Like St. Peter, we must be willing to get out our boats, even in turbulent water, and go to Jesus.
• Life is often difficult. All of us from time to time must deal with various stresses and anxieties. None of us ever completely escapes suffering. But our Gospel reminds us today that our Lord is always with us in our times of trial.
• Yet if we wish to experience His presence in our trials, then we must cultivate an intimate relationship with Him through daily prayer.
• Indeed, the great benefit of Christian discipleship is that our Lord invites us through prayer to begin experiencing on earth a little of the joy that will be ours in Heaven, for ultimately, prayer is not a matter of asking God for what we want.
• The goal of prayer is to be united with our Lord now, so that we will be better prepared for being united with Him for all eternity in Heaven. But this requires that we be willing to climb the mountain.
• My brothers and sisters, let us never be content with the poor and feeble prayers that so many of us often mutter without much thought.
• Rather, let us strive to ascend to the very heights of prayerful union with our Lord through our study of Him and His Word, and by cultivating a life of virtue.
• Let us always approach our Lord courageously and with great confidence, and trust that by so doing He will raise us to the heights of holiness.

© Reverend Timothy Reid

Fr. Reid is the pastor of St. Ann Catholic Church, Charlotte, NC

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